Was trying act 2 inferno last night with my Monk who has just under 700 resist all, and about 6k armor, 20% block, 30% dodge all unbuffed. And then my barb friend joined and war cried bumping all these defensive stats up by a heap. From memory it was above 1000 resist all, and around 10k armor. My hp is a bit low though at 24k.

Now, we entered a cave where there was a champion pack who had plague, and a boss with arcane and shielded minions (who also cast arcane)

Neither of us could survive more than 3-5 hits (us hitting). I read in forums that some monsters you just have to skip and run from.... that's so unsatisfying though. It is true? Or are we just not powerful enough?

5 Answers
5

If you are farming / questing alone then there will always be very hard champions. For ranged characters the worst affixes usually are "Fast", "Vortex" in combination with "Molten" and "Damage Reflect", while melee characters have to struggle with "Fire Chains", "Arcane" and "Plague".

There are even some "normal" monsters that are very difficult. For Demon Hunters everything that attacks you instantly from off screen, like Lacuni Huntresses is quite bothersome.

What I am trying to say is: There are certain monsters or affix combinations that are very nasty. Some of these are so powerful that you cannot kill them or it is such a huge investment of time and money (death) that it is not worth it. Either skip them or just create a new game.

This problem is way better if you have a well balanced party, for example 1 Warrior, 1 Monk, 1 Wizard and 1 Demon Hunter. Then the other characters will kill the champions without your help, even though it might take longer.

It gets worse if the whole party struggles with the same affixes, like in your case.

I'd just like to add that while you may find a certain pack type challenging or even impossible given your current gear, you will eventually be able to overcome them, particularly in Act 2. I spent a lot of time getting schooled in Act 2, but after gearing up a bit more I can now practically faceroll through it, destroying every pack type I come across. So yeah, right now sometimes you have to run away, but that's kind of the entire point of Inferno... grind out better gear so that eventually you destroy everything in your path and overcome these challenges.
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SternoJul 9 '12 at 0:55

Depends on your class. Plus Act 2 is really crappy for DH. I prefer jumping directly from Act 1 to Act 3, skipping Act 2 completely. Just ask someone to help you kill Belial. Farming Act 2 with a DH is just not worth it IMHO.
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ayckosterJul 9 '12 at 1:32

Arcane, in general, is simply incredibly hard for melee classes at the moment since the damage from the beam hits hard, often (there is absolutely nothing you can do if you are sitting on top of the center of the beam as a melee if you can't move out of it), and cannot be blocked/dodged.

The only way to survive arcane is to fight in an open area and move around a lot to dodge the beams. However, if you factor in other considerations such as teaming them up with frozen, jailer, or nightmare, arcane becomes almost impossible to take down via melee.

There are a few things you can do to make it slightly easier, however.

As a monk you have several ways of handling arcane:

Move. If you see the arcane ball land on the ground, try to get out of its area of effect right away. In some cases this may not be possible, which leads to:

Serenity. This is always the go to skill to use when you are stuck and cannot get out. At the very least you can use this to buy you a few seconds to navigate around and also it breaks freeze/jailer which is quite useful.

Inner Sanctuary. When you are body blocked in, this thing can kick things back and give you the room to run away out of arcane. I like to use the 35% damage reduction rune with my IS which allows me to tank through some arcane.

Life on Hit. You need to have very high life on hit to even consider tanking through a single sweep of the beam. If there are multiple beams, I highly recommend doing #1.

Seven Sided Strike. If you have this skill on your bar you can pop it just before the beam sweeps through you to completely dodge the damage.

Lots of healing. The monk has the ability to heal themselves at a much higher rate than a barb, which can counter the effect of 1-2 beam sweeps. Try to find yourself a fist with built in transcendence (50+ life per spirit spent) and life on hit (or a socket).

Lure some of the minions away and take them on one at a time. This is very time consuming.

Get a ranged character to help you out. 2 Melee characters means some combinations are just super annoying to the both of you but having a mix of melee and range can mitigate a lot of the combinations.

If all else fails, just run away, drop an inner sanctuary at a choke point and retreat.

Also, since he mentioned he played with a Barbarian friend, I'll say that as a Barbarian I love Leap specifically for Arcane and Frozen... I can just sort of hop in the air and let the Arcane Beam pass below me without moving much, and if timed correctly, you can be mid-air when the frozen explosions go off, which keeps you from getting hit.
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SternoJul 9 '12 at 15:01

As a monk i have had some issues with specific prefixes but most are overcome with a bit of thought prior to just running back in. In most cases i have tried to change the location of the fight (kite them off to open area) or even tried to bottle neck them in rooms. I have found that using the environment in a smarter way lets you beat those tougher packs.

I also focus my character mostly on LoH as well as Regen. I have about 1200 LoH and 1600 Regen which helps mitigate some of the damage. LoH helps when i am able to hit the mobs, but many times i do get cornered or immobilized and that is when the regen definitely helps.

I agree. Move. High armor and res so you don't die from a single beam hit. High LoH so you can rebuild health between potions. Focus on the minions. Takes time to whittle them down. Then as Barb you can frenzy the champion and hopefully keep it stunned. I beat a Frozen Arcane Champion with the "pull you toward them" affix yesterday. Took a while and my party members who have higher paragon level died several times because they were not patient enough to keep running away and kiting. This is not a way to maximize gold/minute while farming. This is for the personal satisfaction of telling yourself "I killed a Frozen Arcane pack" and seeing your buddy chat "I can't believe you did not die even once against that dang bat champion"!